Boston 88, Atlanta 85

The Hawks gave us exactly the kind of game we needed Wednesday night.

[recap] [box score]

A bunch of factors gave me a bad feeling going into the game: the fact that the game was in Atlanta, where we hadn't won in three trips during last year's postseason; the fact that Atlanta had just beaten a torrid Cleveland team; the fact that Paul Pierce had hurt his knee Monday night against Utah. The early going did little to allay those fears, as Pierce was moving around a little gingerly and Atlanta seemed to be getting to all the loose balls. To be fair, I didn't agree with Mark Jackson's second-quarter assessment that the Hawks were outworking or outhustling the Celtics. We were working plenty hard, but Atlanta is quicker as a team than we are and it was their superior athleticism that was carrying the day.

Kevin Garnett brought this one home with a dominating fourth quarter, something that, despite everything he's brought to this team, he's done only a handful of times in green and white. He did it by going making aggressive moves in the post, too, rather than finessing in those ridiculous turnaround jumpers he makes look so easy. It remains a mystery to me what causes Garnett to become aggressive with the ball and go to the cup, but but when he does, his size and athleticism make him an unstoppable force.

Rajon Rondo had another solid game, but he wasn't always the player he's been this year. He was really only aggressive towards the end of the first half -- after Atlanta had built a seven-point lead -- and then again in the fourth quarter. Still, his tendency has been to disappear for entire games on the road, so the fact that he looked to take it to the hole at all in the toughest environment he's been in this year is a really good sign.

I'm still concerned about what might happen if we once again lock up with Atlanta in a playoff series; they play us tougher than they play anybody else, their athleticism gives us problems, and Ray Allen still can't guard Joe Johnson. But Wednesday night was our first real test in a while, and we passed, on a night when no one was particularly hot from the floor.

We go for 17 straight at home against Chicago on Friday (no national TV). I'll almost certainly be drunkenly celebrating the end of my first semester of law school and therefore won't catch the game live, but I'll try to catch it in the archives of League Pass broadband sometime on Saturday and weigh in with some thoughts.